Trending On A Tuesday: Volume 2

June 28, 2017

“Alexa, convert 2.42 billion Euros to US dollars?” — google

“Alexa, ask Jeff to put a screen on an echo”

Why yes he can, and he did. Amazon is preparing to release the new Echo Show and we are pretty excited about. If you are like us, Alexa wakes you up every morning and is your companion for the first 30–45 minutes of your day answering questions like “What’s the weather like?”, “What’s going on in the news?”, and “Can you go to work for me?” Echo Show can still answer all these questions plus let you watch YouTube videos, video chat friends, and, get this, show you the time. Read our favorite review →

2[.7] Billion… Dollars

E.U. antitrust officials have slapped Google with a 2.7 billion (yes with a B) dollar fine for unfairly favoring its services over competitors. If the penalty stands it’ll be more than double the largest previous fine in this type of case. This ruling further bolsters the E.U.’s reputation for handing out heavy handed penalties on US tech companies. Today Margrethe Vestager, the European Union’s antitrust chief stated that, “In Europe, companies must compete on the merits regardless if they are European or not, what Google has done is illegal under E.U. antitrust rules.” Google may appeal. More details from across the pond →

2 Billion… Users

Today Facebook announced that it has officially hit over 2 billion monthly active users (MAU) on the platform formerly know as The Facebook. Facebook now has three platforms with over a billion monthly active users — Facebook, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger with Instagram not far behind at 700M. Youtube is the only non-facebook platform to hit the billion plus mark with 1.5B MAUs. The next closest is China based WeChat with nearly 900M users. See chart of how bad Facebook crushing everyone here →

Hold on to your BitCoin (F**k You Ransomware)

The string of ransomware attacks continues today. This widespread attack has affected companies across the globe, including shipping and oil giants. Similar to the “Wannacry” attacks last month, infected users are instructed to pay $300 in Bitcoin to decrypt their systems. Read Recode’s full breakdown of today’s attacks →

Questions?

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